EPA official who quit over 'crucify' remarks hired by green group
A former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official who resigned earlier this year for comparing his work to crucifixion has found new employment with a leading green group.
The Sierra Club on Friday announced that Al Armendariz would be joining the group’s “Beyond Coal” campaign next month as a senior representative.
“As a third generation Texan, I’m proud to be taking on this new role to help protect Texas,” Armendariz said in a statement released by Sierra Club.
Armendariz stepped down as EPA’s Region 6 administrator in April after a video surfaced of him comparing his work enforcing of environmental laws to the way ancient Roman conquerors used terror to keep order.
“It is kind of like how the Romans used to conquer the villages in the Mediterranean — they’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. Then that town was really easy to manage for the next few years,” Armendariz said during a 2010 meeting in Texas.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who released the video of the meeting, mockingly offered his congratulations to Armendariz on Friday.
“Dr. Armendariz follows numerous Obama administration officials who have come from or moved to radical left and green groups,” Inhofe said in a statement. “It's as if there is a revolving door between the White House and organizations such as the Sierra Club.”
"At least at the Sierra Club he won't get into so much trouble for telling the truth that their true agenda is to kill oil, gas and coal,” he added.
Armendariz, a political appointee, oversaw oil- and gas-producing states such as Texas and Oklahoma. In his resignation letter, he said the crucifixion comments didn’t reflect his approach to the job.
“As I have expressed publicly, and to you directly, I regret comments I made several years ago that do not in any way reflect my work as regional administrator. As importantly, they do not represent the work you have overseen as EPA administrator,” he wrote to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson.
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